


On Beautiful

by katsumeragi



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: M/M, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3422705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsumeragi/pseuds/katsumeragi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yet he was convinced when Yamamoto said he was beautiful last week, it was an obvious and cold-hearted lie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Beautiful

_What a fucking idiot I am_ , he thought.

So there was Gokudera scowling at the mirror in his refrigerator box-sized bathroom while his laundry was tumbling in the dryer downstairs from his closet-sized apartment. He looks just the same as ever, so he thinks. He’s got dark circles under his eyes, dry skin on his cheekbones, hair that’s starting to turn more peppered than silver, yellowing teeth from his ritual of a pack a day, and an all-around sense of style that looked like he got drunk at a rock concert and slept in a vintage store because he was too fucked to remember his way home.

He began to comb his hand through his hair from the front, pretending it was someone else’s. Someone with powdery tanned skin. It showed his roots, those sprouting freckles of black, and his pierced ears. He regretted at least half of them. The novelty of his orbital wore off after the second month he had it but didn’t want to go through the annoyance of caring for the opened hole. Apparently he was the only one who felt that way about it.

He tried to soften his expression. He didn’t squint so hard in self-deprecation. The small but numerous creases in his forehead relaxed. He let his right canine tooth gently bite down on the corner of his lip as he nervously batted his eyes.

“What the fuck am I doing with my life,” he asked himself aloud since here he was, trying to figure out how to entice Yamamoto out of all people.  

He didn’t need enticing, though. Yamamoto was practically stapled to him ever since he was let in the Family but after they were a bit more...honest with each other he was practically fused to him by radioactive waste. They traded off nights at each other’s places, they walked to school together and exchanged firm hand-holdings and quick pecks on the cheek before meeting with Tsuna and the girls, they even had toothbrushes and bath towels they kept around for each other. He glanced down at Yamamoto’s pale blue toothbrush with baseballs and mitts on it. Gokudera bought it as a fucking _joke_. It’s legitimately for fucking _children_ yet Yamamoto thought it was the best thing ever just because it was a gift from him.

_Why would that moron ever say anything so goddamn stupid like that to me?_

Yamamoto’s words were always the absolute truth to himself. He was downright awful at lying so at some point in his life he stopped trying and let his cheery bluntness become a sickeningly great quality of his. Every private moment they shared if he suddenly remembered how much he loved him, he’d voice it like a constant messenger on a phone. At first Gokudera wished his father taught him how to have a fucking filter but he grew to tolerate it, even love every word of it. Every argument they had Gokudera was met with his raw emotion and honesty that made him want to curl up and disappear for realizing how awful he could be to any human being that wasn’t himself.

Yet he was convinced when Yamamoto said he was beautiful last week, it was an obvious and cold-hearted lie.

He wanted to clock him in the jaw as soon as the words left his mouth but instead just asked “What the hell are you going on about?”

Yamamoto flashed his signature grin, the one that left all the spectators of his baseball games melting. “Heh, you heard me. I think you’re beautiful.”

They didn’t speak of it again, since Gokudera couldn’t formulate a response that  wasn’t throwing dynamite. What, like a girl? Did guys even get called beautiful? Was it because of his hair? His scrawny pale frame he desperately tried to keep covered because he looked like a delicate fucking flower and not a strong mafioso? Did his “beauty” include him always looking so rough around the edges with his metal bracelets and chains? He could have said a lot worse. He could have been patronizing and said cute, or adorable. He could have shredded away at his masculinity he was already so self-conscious of. In the deepest, most hidden away corner of his mind he could reciprocate the sentiment with ease. Yamamoto was more than than beautiful but was painfully _hot_. His constant athletic training sculpted him into a boy that shouldn’t exist. It made his blood boil. It was...almost embarrassing to him. To be like two jigsaw puzzle pieces forced together to create a picture that wasn’t meant to be.

He just didn’t see it.

He couldn’t see how under the cigarette ashes, the gunpowder, the cheap Italian cologne he wears that reminds him of how his house used to smell when his mother was alive, someone could ever use the word beautiful towards him.

Gokudera curled up his fists until his knuckles were ghostly white and punched his mirror. It didn’t shatter but cracked like dampered thunder. The only pieces that flew off were the ones lodged into his hand. _Well fucking look at that, I'm not even as strong as I thought I was._

He couldn’t see how under the self-hatred and overcompensation, and the fact he was a mixed-up mutt degenerate, and just all of the blood, Yamamoto could ever think of Gokudera as beautiful, or even remotely easy on the eyes.

There was a knock at his door. Fuck, he forgot Yamamoto was still coming over after helping his father at the restaurant.His tweezers were still by his comb. His shaking and undamaged hand reached for them and worked with a mortified fury to get the glass out.

A louder knock rapped on his or. "I'll be right fucking there, just hold on a minute!"

He scrambled for the gauze and bandages underneath his sink and prayed that if he said he burned himself it would buy him enough time before he could clean up the broken window that showed how beautiful he really wasn’t.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a small one-off that I wanted to put into words while I'm working on a much larger 8059 story between this original thing too. It's...well, a different kind of dark compared to the other one I've posted so far. I blame the amount of David Fincher movies I've watched recently. Gone Girl more than any of them. But I'm SUPER excited for when I'm done with it which honestly won't be until like mid-March probably...but hey I love my job so I can't complain D:


End file.
